....and she really was beautiful. During the thirties she hadn't really got the glamour treatment, John Springer said "the studio worked her like a road company Lillian Gish". She was at her best portraying naive, idealistic young women ("Dr. Monica") or awkward adolescents ("Desirable") with much sincerity and when she did have a glamorous role (as Helen, the one who was beautiful) she rose to the occasion as well. Like Josephine Hutchinson she was at the wrong studio, anywhere else she may have been thought of as another Katherine Hepburn but Warners threw her into everything.
When Helen Lattimer (Muir), the beautiful one, realises that Ridley Crane (Robert Cummings) millionaire man about town will not be at the party that night she pleads sick and tomboy sister Kate (Laraine Day) has to go in her place. But surprise!! surprise!! Ridley is there and is very taken with Kate and her freshness and charm - as she says "I'm not witty, can't wisecrack and can't flirt"!!! They share a mutual love of cars and their workings!!!
Helen gets her act together enough to mesmerize Ridley with her beauty next time they meet which is the next night. Ridley gets drunk and while Helen is at the wheel she kills a cyclist. Frightened she runs home and it is very easy to convince everyone that Ridley was driving as there was a witnessed scene outside the club and the fact that the town is still talking about Ridley's scandalous hit and run which happened the year before. Only Kate has her doubts - Helen's dirty gloves have been mysteriously scrubbed clean and she also digs up a parcel Helen has buried to find it is Helen's heel-less shoe - a big clue to determining Ridley's innocence. Things aren't plain sailing though, rushing to her uncle with evidence, Helen then refutes Kate, saying she was in the car but when Ridley ran over the man she ran off, screaming. Her lies are so convincing that everyone sides with her against Kate!!!
Being an MGM B means at any other studio the movie would have been promoted as an A - it's production, sets, direction and cast can't be faulted. Laraine Day was good as the determined Kate but even at this early stage of her career she had already appeared in two Dr. Kildare movies and the dye was cast. She was so popular as Nurse Molly Lamont that MGM didn't really consider her for anything else. When she was cast against type as the smiling psychopath in "The Locket", in my opinion she was not convincing.
When Helen Lattimer (Muir), the beautiful one, realises that Ridley Crane (Robert Cummings) millionaire man about town will not be at the party that night she pleads sick and tomboy sister Kate (Laraine Day) has to go in her place. But surprise!! surprise!! Ridley is there and is very taken with Kate and her freshness and charm - as she says "I'm not witty, can't wisecrack and can't flirt"!!! They share a mutual love of cars and their workings!!!
Helen gets her act together enough to mesmerize Ridley with her beauty next time they meet which is the next night. Ridley gets drunk and while Helen is at the wheel she kills a cyclist. Frightened she runs home and it is very easy to convince everyone that Ridley was driving as there was a witnessed scene outside the club and the fact that the town is still talking about Ridley's scandalous hit and run which happened the year before. Only Kate has her doubts - Helen's dirty gloves have been mysteriously scrubbed clean and she also digs up a parcel Helen has buried to find it is Helen's heel-less shoe - a big clue to determining Ridley's innocence. Things aren't plain sailing though, rushing to her uncle with evidence, Helen then refutes Kate, saying she was in the car but when Ridley ran over the man she ran off, screaming. Her lies are so convincing that everyone sides with her against Kate!!!
Being an MGM B means at any other studio the movie would have been promoted as an A - it's production, sets, direction and cast can't be faulted. Laraine Day was good as the determined Kate but even at this early stage of her career she had already appeared in two Dr. Kildare movies and the dye was cast. She was so popular as Nurse Molly Lamont that MGM didn't really consider her for anything else. When she was cast against type as the smiling psychopath in "The Locket", in my opinion she was not convincing.